Brahms & VanHalen

Last month, I had the great honor of spending an evening with Uli Jon Roth (of the Scorpions). At one point, he asked me to play his favorite part of the Brahms Violin Concerto – the end of the exposition of the first movement. When I got to the intense sixteenth-note passage, he pointed out that, years ago, he had started incorporating that lick into some of his guitar solos, and then “Eddie” (meaning Van Halen, of course) had started copying him, and then all of the other guitarists started copying Eddie. I was blown away to learn that this lick which every guitarist plays these days originated from Brahms